Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 17:1-10
Take a Bible and turn to Luke 17. Luke 17, we're going to look at the first 10 verses in Luke 17, we're going to read it in just a minute. I'm going to give you the big idea in just a minute, before we do that, while you find Luke 17 verse 1, if you've been around for the last few weeks, you may remember that we have mentioned and referenced and gone back to Luke 951, and Luke 951, we read that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, and he did this, Luke says, "When the time drew near for him to be taken up," this time drew close, it was time for him to die, he sets his face and he begins marching to Jerusalem. Our passage is verse 1 to 10 in chapter 17, but just jump to the end of that and look at verse 11, it says, "On the way to Jerusalem," he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee, meaning this last journey is still taking place. Jesus is still traveling on this last march to Jerusalem. When he gets to Jerusalem, he's going to die, he's going to seek and to save the lost and the fullest sense and the grandest sense at the cross, but on this journey, he's interacting with all sorts of people, and there's an interesting back and forth that we've been looking at over the last few weeks, where Jesus is traveling, he has the apostles with him, and he has a larger group of disciples with him as well. He's talking to those people on this last march, but he's also talking to the Pharisees because the Pharisees are sort of tagging along, they're in the background, they're grumbling about different things that Jesus is saying or doing, and so in one passage, Jesus is talking to his disciples, and then a few verses later, he's talking to the Pharisees, and then back to the disciples, and then back to the Pharisees, and you really have to pay attention, as Jesus is making this last march, because you need to know who he's talking to. Is he talking to his enemies, the Pharisees, or is he talking to his closest friends, the apostles, and this larger group of disciples? In our passage this morning, he's talking to the disciples, and he's talking to them about discipleship, and here's the big idea of the passage, it's very simple. The Son of Man has the authority to define discipleship. We've talked about this idea before in the gospel of Luke. This is nothing new, this is nothing unique to this passage, but it's something you see again here very clearly. Jesus has the authority to define discipleship. To be very specific, what Luke is telling us in these verses and what Jesus is saying as he talks to his disciples is, if you're going to follow me, Jesus is the one who gets to say what that looks like and what it doesn't look like. You don't get to decide that. I read an article, somebody posted on their Facebook page, it was somebody that I'd gone to high school with, and the article was this long rambling nonsense that basically said you can be a Christian or you could insert the word disciple, you can be a disciple without doing anything that the Bible says. The Bible's really irrelevant, we all know it's full of mistakes, it's an old ancient goofy book, and you can be a good Christian and completely ignore the Bible. I don't think Jesus would hit the like button on the article because he's saying very clearly, who his disciples look, if you're going to follow me, here's what it has to look like. If you're not doing it this way, you're not a disciple, it's very simple. You don't have to do what the Bible says, you don't have to let it have an authority or an influence in your life, that's fine. Just don't call yourself a disciple. Jesus is reminding us in these passages, he's reminding his followers that he has the authority to define discipleship. It reminds me of something we've been studying among some of our leaders. One of the things we do with our staff and I do with our elders is I make them read, I give them books and we have to read the books and when we meet together we talk about it and I ask them questions and we're reading a book right now by a guy named Robert Coleman, he's not related to me, he's called the master plan of evangelism. Here's a quote we talked about this week, Jesus expected the men he was with to obey him, they were not required to be smart but they had to be loyal. That's undeniable when you read through the gospels that that is a true statement. Jesus looked at these guys and he said look, you don't have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer but you've got to stick with me. You don't have to understand everything but you've got to do what I say and that's what Jesus is reminding his friends in this passage. Robert Coleman didn't invent that out of thin air, he pulled it right out of Luke 17 and so look with me, at Luke 17 we're going to read from verse 1 to verse 10. He that is Jesus said to his disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come but woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuking and if he repents, forgiving and if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying I repent, you must forgive him. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith and the Lord said, if you had faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table. Will you not rather say to him, prepare supper for me, dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink and afterward you will eat and drink. Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say we are unworthy servants, we have only done what was our duty. Let's pray. Father forgive us when we try to turn Christianity into something that Jesus never intended it to be. Forgive us when we call things Christian that are not. Forgive us when we look at ourselves or the people close to us and we call them Christians and they are not following Jesus on his terms. Give us eyes to see the truth this morning, give us ears to hear it, give us hearts to receive it and we pray that your spirit would impress it on our souls and on our minds and on our hearts that we would understand it and live it. We ask it in Jesus name, amen. This is not all that Jesus said about what does it mean to be a disciple but it is some of the things and so we are going to talk about discipleship as Jesus defines it this morning. What does it mean to follow Jesus? Number one, I am just going to give you a couple of ideas. Number one, disciples understand the gravity or the seriousness or the weightiness of leading other people toward sin. If you are a disciple, truly a disciple, you understand how serious it is that you might lead somebody else further from Jesus and closer to sin. Now Jesus is a realist, look at the text, he says temptations to sin are sure to come. He knows it's going to come. He doesn't want you to have any illusions that you won't be tempted and Jesus knows this from personal experience. You can go back to Luke 4 and you can read about Jesus being tempted by the devil and the wilderness. Certainly not the only time that he faced temptation but one specific moment where Jesus faces temptation in the wilderness. Here is something interesting we read in Hebrews 4.15 about that moment. It is Jesus who is our great high priest was in every respect tempted as we are yet without sin. I don't know about you but sometimes that's hard to believe for me. That Jesus faced every temptation that I faced. I believe the part that he is without sin. That for some reason is easier but when it says he's been tempted in every respect like we are yet without sin. You understand that Jesus understands temptation and he understands it better than you do. A lot of times we think well you haven't been in this situation. You haven't faced this circumstance. The Bible says he understands it and he understands it to a degree that you will never understand it. You know you and I face temptation and it doesn't take a lot for us to take the bait. Jesus faced it and he faced it to the fullest because he never gave in. He never caved. He never made a wrong decision. He never sinned. Hebrews 4.15 he was without sin but he faced the full measure of that temptation. So he knows what temptation it's like. He knows what it's like to be tempted and he says out of the gate temptation to sin is going to come and you understand how much hope we find in Hebrews 4.15 that says he's tempted in every way and every way yet without sin. You understand without Jesus obeying perfectly there is no reason for him to march to Jerusalem in this passage. There's no Luke 19.10 if there's no Hebrews 4.15. If Jesus doesn't obey perfectly then when he gets to Jerusalem he needs to die not for my sin and your sin but for his sin. And we find hope that he's a realist and he understands temptation. He's faced it. He's faced it head on and never sinned and he marches to Jerusalem to die not for his own sins but for our sins. He says temptation to sin will come. The word he uses for temptation is the word scandalon and it's in other contexts used to describe the bait stick on an animal trap, the bait stick. A couple of weeks ago it was still hot it was still the heat of summer it was a Saturday it was too hot to go outside and do anything and so Emma and I got to watch on TV. And they put a marathon of a show on TV that we had never seen before and we started watching it. And the show is called Fat Guys in the Woods. You seen this show? Mona's seen it. It's real. Fat guys in the woods. They're kind of running out of reality show ideas at this point so they've got fat guys in the woods. And they've got this guy. He's a survivalist and his name is Creek Stewart and to me he looks like a hippie from Santa Fe. And Creek takes these guys and they're big guys and they go out in the woods and they just sort of camp out and they do guy stuff and he tries to teach them how to survive and all this stuff. One thing they did in almost every episode that we watched and we watched several is they tried to build a trap to catch an animal. And they almost always went with the dead fall trap and it looked something like this. You find a big rock. You lean it up on a stick. You take the bait stick between your post and the rock and you put it right there and the idea is really simple. When the animal comes underneath the rock to eat the meat, the stick wiggles, the rock falls and you have dinner, it's simple. Jesus says temptation is like the bait stick sticking down in the middle. It's got something you want on it. It's got something that's tempting that lures you there. But as soon as you grab it, what happens? Death. That's what Jesus says temptation is like. I don't know how seriously you take temptation, but I'm pretty sure if there was a giant boulder leaning on a little stick and there was something under there you really, really wanted. You probably wouldn't just walk underneath to grab it. You would look at the whole situation and you say wait a minute, this looks like a trap. That rock could crush me. Jesus says that's what temptation is like. Temptation to sin is sure to come but here's the but. Woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Here's a millstone or several millstones and they come in all shapes and sizes but it's just a big giant round piece of rock and you hook an animal to the other end and the animal walks in a circle and the stone rolls around and it crushes the grain for you and there you go. It says like some kind of mob boss if you're going to lead people to sin it would be better for that to be around your neck and to take a swim with the fishies. Again I don't know how serious you take temptation and you take the possibility that you might lead people away from Jesus and closer to sin but that's how serious Jesus takes it. If you're going to be a disciple. Look there's going to be temptation Jesus doesn't deny that but he says you need to be very careful that you are not the one doing the tempting that you're not leading people away from me and closer to sin and if that's going to be you let me just give you a better option put one of these around your neck and jump into the lake. That's a better end than the end for the person who causes one of these little ones to sin. Now let's be honest okay you woke up this morning on a Sunday morning you could have done a lot of things today and you decided to come to church for whatever reason you decided to come to church this morning. So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and I'm going to say that I bet no one in the room no one you're here at church on a Sunday morning I bet none of you woke up this morning and the first thought in your mind was how can I trick somebody to sin today. None of you woke up with a to-do list that says lure children and helpless widows into sin. None of you you understand that you can cause other people to sin without trying to cause other people to sin. Do you understand that you don't have to wake up in the morning and put it on your agenda. You don't have to set a reminder on your iPhone to pop up at 6 in the morning, tempt people to sin today lure them away from Jesus today you can wake up and you can go through your everyday life and whether you realize you're doing it or not you can lead people away from Jesus and towards sin you say how in the world would I do something like that. Can you believe untrue things about the Bible and you go around saying to people that's in the Bible somewhere you're doing that. I'm amazed at what people tell me is in the Bible. If you're going to say something's in the Bible you better know it's in the Bible and if you can't find it or give me the address or quote it or let's look it up together you probably don't need to say I think that's in the Bible somewhere isn't that biblical I think it's in Proverbs somewhere you need to be careful you might be leading people away and you don't even realize it how does it happen parents and grandparents it happens when you set an ungodly example for your kids you say well it's not like I'm giving them a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of jack it's not like I'm putting garbage on the TV and making them watch it listen when you set an ungodly example for them when you grumble about church when you gossip about other people we could go on and on you know what kind of example you said and when you don't set a godly example you're leading your kids and your grandkids further from Jesus and closer to sin that's the kind of stuff Jesus is talking about here put the millstone around your neck and jump into the lake how does it happen happens when you fail to use the influence over other people that God has given you to point them closer to Christ you know my guess is that most of you come to church and you feel like church is sort of a spiritual thing a religious thing and then you leave and it's sort of like a weird transition for you because you're like okay now back to real life regular life I have a job I have to punch in I have to punch out I have to get this done I have to accomplish this I'm working in the oil field I'm teaching in a classroom it really doesn't have anything to do with what you're talking about up on Sunday mornings church is good and all and I'm going to keep coming but the rest of my life is just kind of like real life you understand in your quote unquote real life God has given you opportunities to influence people for the truth and for his kingdom you can take those opportunities and you can help people grow closer to Christ or you can just let them lie and ignore them and you can help them grow closer to sin doesn't mean you have to go around preaching all day every day 24/7 but it means you know the influence and the relationships that you have with people are you using those to make people grow closer to Jesus or closer to sin because Jesus says right here if you're a real disciple you understand you feel the weight and the burden of how serious it is to lead other people closer to sin you're boring every day real life is loaded with spiritual potential whether you realize it or you don't realize it it's there number two discipleship disciples live in a community committed to holiness and forgiveness we're going to move through this pretty quick a community committed to holiness and forgiveness Jesus is a realist he knows temptation will come he warns you about being the one through whom it may be comes but he also knows that we're going to sin he knows it and so he's saying here here's how you plural you deal with sin you have a community not a neighborhood not a subdivision this you have a group of people you understand as you look around this room if you are not close enough to someone else in this room that they could sin against you and hurt you you're not close enough to the community Jesus assumes you're going to live in a community and there will be sin and it will be against you from time to time you say well I don't want to go to a church where people are going to sin against me then don't go to church at all or go to one where you can just show up and be entertained and leave don't try to do that here we don't want anyone to do that here I'm just going to pop in I'm going to pop out I'm going to come get my spiritual fix entertainment then I'm going to leave not what we're after I want you close enough to other people in this church that they can hurt you I don't want them to hurt you but I want you that close Jesus says you need to be in community and you need to be committed to holiness not just your holiness but their holiness other people's holiness so he says when your brother sins rebuking you say wait a minute wait a minute people are always quoting Matthew seven to me I'm not supposed to judge that's like the best known verse in the Bible right now Matthew seven do not judge others or you two will be judged who am I to do that listen you can quote Matthew seven one until you're blue in the face all day long and I'm just going to come right back with Luke 17 and I'm going to say when your brother sins rebuking when your brother sins rebuking that's straight out of the mouth of Jesus well that just seems mean and judgmental well then don't call yourself a disciple that's what Jesus says we do when you see your brother underneath the rock and he's about to grab the bait stick and you know the boulder is going to smashing please don't quote Matthew seven one to me please rebuking and say you got to stop you this is not good this is dangerous this is not right so we're in a community we're committed to holiness and we're committed to forgiveness here Jesus says if he sins against you and asks for forgiveness seven times in one day you forgive him every time elsewhere in a different conversation Jesus tells the disciples you have to do it up to seventy seven times you're smart enough to understand that the number is not the point the point is you need to be committed to forgiveness you need to come into this community knowing at some point somebody's going to do something or say something that's going to hurt me and it's my job to rebuke them in that not to be a total jerk about it but to talk to them about it and when they turn and they repent it's then my job to forgive them if you're not interested in that you're not interested in being a disciple Jesus says this is how it works for disciples I know that's hard to honestly think about rebuking somebody when they sin or to think about forgiving somebody over and over and over but you understand when Jesus asks you to do this live in community committed to holiness and forgiveness he is asking you to do for others what he's already done for you Luke 1910 the son of man came he didn't just send a message he came and he lived among us in community he was 415 he never sinned he was committed to holiness he exposed the sin of his followers and the Pharisees he's committed to holiness he died on the cross for your sins and your forgiveness he's committed to forgiveness he's asking you to do what he has already done for you number three disciples find power in the object of our faith not the amount of our faith the object of our faith not the amount of our faith verse five is a funny verse in the middle of what Jesus is saying here the disciples break in and they say increase our faith they just heard Jesus warn about the dangers of leading people to sin and they just heard Jesus talk about community and holiness and forgiveness and they break in and basically what they're saying is we can't do that on our own if that's going to happen in us you're going to have to do something for us we need help we need you to their specific request increase our faith on the surface doesn't that seem like a pretty good request doesn't that seem like something that Jesus would be pleased with somebody coming to him and saying I need you to increase my faith I want to have more faith I want to have stronger faith in Jesus could have just said okay it's a good thing to ask for way to go he doesn't say that instead he starts talking about seeds and trees he starts talking about mustard seeds something that was proverbial in Jesus's day for very very tiny things mustard seeds he said you need faith you don't need me to increase your faith you just need a mustard seed of faith and he starts talking about mulberry trees and he says look if you just have a mustard seed of faith you can say to this giant mulberry tree up and although the roots grow deep and they're interconnected with other mulberry trees you just say to it up and it's going to go a little bit of faith you don't need me to increase your faith it's not dependent on you and how much faith you have it's dependent on who you have the faith in when you turn it into I need more faith I need this level of faith you're no different than the Pentecostal charismatic faith healers who promise healing for everyone in the room and then when you don't get healed they look you in the eyeballs and they have the gumption to say to you well you just don't have enough faith you just need more faith if you only had enough faith then you could be healed baloney it has nothing to do with you at all your faith is not what heals you God is the one who heals you through faith and Jesus says you need a mustard seed you understand Jesus is not giving his disciples license to go out and say well we're people of faith I have a mustard seed of faith so I'm going to tell trees to jump into the ocean and mountains to go over here and be moved that way he's responding to a specific request and the request is Jesus tells the disciples you need to be committed as a community to holiness and forgiveness and the disciples say wait a minute wait a minute if that's what you're looking for we can't do that we need help we need you to increase our faith and Jesus comes back saying you don't need me to increase your faith you just need to have true faith and it really doesn't matter how much or how strong it's who it's in you have the faith to do these things is what Jesus is telling them he doesn't increase their faith he just says you need a tiny bit and you need it in the right person and when you have that you can do amazing things let me tell you something that's more amazing than sending a tree to be planted in the ocean is forgiving somebody who sins against you seven times in one day I don't know if I could do that I sort of feel like the disciples saying if that's going to happen it's not going to be me it's going to be God doing it in me and through me that's what Jesus is saying a little bit of faith in the right place and you can do the things that I'm calling you to do as disciples number four disciples do not obey to put God at our debt or disposal we do not obey to put God at our debt or our disposal passage ends with a parable and it's kind of a strange parable and it's kind of tricky to understand so I want you to think about it in the parable there's a master and a servant and Jesus says the servant has been out in the fields doing servant things all day long and the master's back at the house and at the end of the day the servant comes back in it's a master and a servant and in the parable Jesus says obviously at the end of the day your servant comes in you don't say to the servant hey why don't you kick your shoes off why don't you come sit down here you come eat with us and just take it easy enjoy the dinner what you say to your servant is why isn't dinner ready yet I'm hungry I'm the master you're the servant get dinner ready and then after we eat and you serve us then you can eat and Jesus says when the servant brings you the dinner you don't you're not obligated to say thank you or applaud them it's they're just doing their job they're doing what they're supposed to do they've done nothing more nothing less than the bare minimum of what's expected as a servant you understand this is a parable Jesus is not saying this is how you should treat your waiter at a restaurant this is how you should treat your children who are your servants at home not the point Jesus is talking about your relationship with God and Jesus knows something very important about you and me Jesus knows that at heart we are prone to be Pharisees he knows that when he starts talking about discipleship and he starts laying out these things be careful about leading people to sin live in community committed to holiness and committed to forgiveness make sure you have just a mustard seed of faith is enough but you have faith in the right person when he starts telling us what he expects of us as disciples he knows you and he knows me and he knows that we're prone to take all these things and to put them in a list and to start checking them off the list and then when we get to the bottom of the list to bring our list to God and say look at me chest bowed out I did all of it I am such a good disciple I'm a much better disciple than that guy he's only on the second thing on his list he can't get that third one down look at me I got all of them down right here and at that point you might as well be a Pharisee obeying God to earn your way with him and so Jesus tells the story to put us in our place and to say don't ever forget who the master is and who the servant is and don't ever forget at the end of the day when you do all these things I'm talking to you about when it comes to discipleship living in community fighting sin having faith all of these things when you do them at the end of the day you are still an unworthy servant verse 10 you also when you have done all you were commanded say we are unworthy servants we have only done what was our duty when you leave today and you drive down the road you're not going to look out the window and see the dirt and say man that dirt is doing a great job being dirt today thumbs up for the dirt it's extra dirty it's dirt just does what God made it to do it just sits there and it blows around if you live in west Texas it's just dirt that's what God made it to do you may go outside and you may say something about how beautiful the sky is but when you say that it's not like you're applauding the sky for how blue it made itself today it's the sky it's blue God made it that way it's doing what God made it to do and Jesus says look you're a servant don't come to God with your list of look how great I did these things understand that when you come to God you come and you say I've only done my duty I've only done what you made me to do what you created me to do and you come not just saying I've done my duty but you say I'm an unworthy servant meaning I haven't done those things very good I've fallen short I've sinned against you and my hope is in Luke 19 10 that Jesus came to seek me and to save me that he came to die for me and that he calls me as a disciple and that he tells me this is what a disciple does and yes I'm working on this list of things and I'm trying to grow and I'm trying to do better but it's not to earn my way with you it's been earned at the cross I'm an unworthy servant I've only done my duty let me pray for you Father we're grateful for your word we're grateful this morning that Jesus Christ walked on this earth that he faced the full measure of temptation without sinning that he set his face to march to Jerusalem knowing exactly what would happen when he got there that he died for us and he paid the penalty for our sin Father we're grateful for the mercy that you've shown us in sending your son to seek us and to save us help us to take seriously what Jesus has to say about discipleship help us not to be confused by what we hear from those around us what we read on the internet what we see on TV about what does it mean to be a Christian we just need to listen to Jesus we're like the disciples when we when we hear Jesus say these things we come and we admit we can't do them on our own we pray that you would help us we pray for a mustard seed of faith that rests on the right person we pray for a community at this church that is committed to holiness and is committed to forgiveness Father we pray for a hatred towards sin that is otherworldly that comes only from you and at the end of the day we come before you and we acknowledge our unworthiness and we admit that we are only striving to do what you created us to do and what you saved us to do and Father even as we come and admit that we are unworthy servants we are amazed that through Jesus Christ we're more than just servants we are your sons and your daughters we're your children we're your family we've been adopted into your household into your kingdom and we celebrate that this morning Father as we lift our voices and sing about what it means to be brought into your family to be your children we pray that we would worship you with our voices and that we would worship you with our hearts not to earn something with you not to pay you back for what you've done but just to acknowledge your greatness in your glory in your grace be honored as we sing we pray in Jesus name amen